BlogAlong

Friday, February 02, 2007

Tuning Out & Tuning In

Welcome back to the BlogAlong Self-Development Workshop. This online workshop follows my books/programs including Sugar....the Hidden Eating Disorder & How to Lick It, Beyond Disorderly Eating, the Mind & Body Fitness Boot Camp, Stop Nail Biting Now: 4 Steps to Success, as well as many of my CD/mp3 programs. If you are new to the Workshop, please read the early entries because this is like any other workshop you might attend. If you are late, there are things you have missed that will interfere with your understanding of the process for the attainment of high level health & performance.

I apologize to the group for needing to repeat these messages for those who are new. My suggestion to you is to take a cleansing breath, relax deeply & release. Make this part of your practice for managing those emotions of impatience & urgency to hurry along. BTW, I just came back from the Galapagos Islands where the iguanas, sealions & boobies taught me much about this.

The BlogAlong workshop is both didactic & interactive. The latter includes active discussions, mp3 downloads from my available library, as well as some designed specifically for this workshop. To participate in the discussions you will need to join one of my email yahoogroups. There are ten of them, located on my website or you can email me for an invitation. I suggest you work with a three ring binder &/or a journal. This will reinfoce your subconscious mind programs.

Group members are working on different aspects of their lives. All of us have something to do in this regard. Some problems appear worse than others on the surface, but sometimes what one cannot see or chooses not to see is the most problematic. That's why a good portion of our work here is about heightened awareness. Fear of seeing is a huge issue. I hear this all the time from patients who are afraid to let go & utilize their mind screens.

It's true that many of us have faced some horrible experiences, some of which our mind has blocked out. This is why we utilize the tool of disassociation or disconnect. We relax deeply & enter our egg shape, our personal place on the face of the earth. The mind screen allows us to review old mind files without being in them. We practice with easy things first, gaining confidence & realizing that we can actually enjoy the process. We can feel our power & for some of us, this is a totally new experience. Most of us roam the earth feeling hopeless & helpless, often spiraling down deeper into anxiety or depression. It's no wonder we turn to addictions of all sorts or to habits that harm our body such as hair pulling, nail biting, skin picking & a host of others.

Some of us turn to food or drink for comfort. Anything to tune out, but we all know that there is never enough of anything that works for very long. And so, we need a different approach. First, we need to reprogram our body to function at a lower level of tension. Next, we need to wake up to those bothersome facets of our addictions, habits, negative patterns, thoughts, etc. that are not benefiting us & we need to let go or release them. And then, we need to program our mind & body for what we need & what we want. This is our order of business here in this BlogAlong Workshop.

ON BEING HUMAN

We all want everything yesterday & the idea of working for our desired outcome isn't the way we've been trained as children. And so, we ask for medications, hoping that they will do the job for us. While they might reduce some of the symptoms, the truth of the matter is that the underneath work cannot be managed with a pill. We need to move out of the fear, build our mind & body muscle & take charge of our inner programming. In order to do this, we must start at the beginning & practice deep relax, releasing, disassociating, mind editing & then programming. I know it sounds like a lot & it is. However, this process will take you to places you never dreamed of going & gift you in ways you never dreamed of being gifted. It's an extraordinary journey on which you are embarking & so I hope you stay for the entire journey.

MIND EXERCISE

The crux for today is to accept that you can relax & release better & better each time you practice. This is the truth for me, as well as for each of you & I've been practicing for three decades. Here's why. The more you become aware of what's taking place in the theater of your life, the more frequently you will want to release, relax & re-program. What happens is that your subconscious mind librarian begins to spot those areas that you have chosen to release & re-program & so then you are presented with additional facets or mind patterns that are closely related. So, if you have a tendency towards being impatient or intolerant ( two of my favorites ), you will be shown different varieties of those emotional states. Then, you have the opportunity to relax, release & re-program those. All of this will become second nature to you as you continue along with this work, that is IF you are practicing & not just reading.

You already know how to do the beginning exercise. For those of you who are new, it is in the first installment of the BlogAlong. We learn from others & so here are some questions I received from group members.

SARA - I'm a member of the Sugar Addiction Group & have active bulimia with purging. I am a true food addict, with sugar playing a large part of my intake. After I get inside my egg shape, should I see these negative images on my mind screen? Won't this program my mind for what I don't want?

ELIZ - This is an excellent question. For now, I want Sara to be aware of what she is actually doing. Most of us live on automatic pilot & so we are not fully participating in our negative or hurtful behaviors or patterns. In addition, Sara is not even engaged with her positive behaviors. She tends to see & sense everything from the perspective of what she does wrong. When I asked her, what she does right, she couldn't tell me.

So for now, it's enough to work with awareness of the negative, no matter if it's an eating disorder, pain, nail biting, skin picking, etc. Very soon we will be directing the mind to diminish this WHILE programming the mind for what is wanted or needed. To this image, suggestion or direction, we will connect motivators.

HARLAN - I'm in your accelerated learning group & I'm embarrassed to say that I can't find my mind screen. I'm terrible at visualization, so does this mean that I can't utilize self-hypnosis?

ELIZ - First, embarrassment is an emotion that is not helpful. I asked Harlan to dismiss it to the playground. Now back to Harlan's question. This is one voiced by many people. Seeing in the theater of the mind, is very different from seeing through your actual vision. This is how I moved him past this block. Right now think about what you had for breakfast. And now, lunch. If you haven't had lunch yet, think about what you might like to have. I'm sure your thoughts were accompanied by some sort of image, even if they flashed through. That is inner seeing.

While it's true that most of us have a favorite sense for learning, all of us to utilize inner seeing. Now for Harlan's mind screen, I asked him to simply do the relaxation & then enter his favorite movie theater & find the screen. He had no trouble doing that, so now Harlan has a new image for working with his subconscious mind.

I encourage you to work within your yahoogroups or write to me directly for suggestions. I have a few complimentary mp3 programs posted for you & will be changing them in a day or so, so don't miss out. Please continue working with deep relax & entering the egg shape. Locate your mind screen & know that each time you do so, you will be building your ability to get there quicker. Then you can apply interactive self-hypnosis right into your life, wherever it is needed or you would like to place it. This is true power & you can do this.

The mp3 for your Authentic Self will be located on my website at the following link. AUTHENTIC SELF